Researchers
- Rafal M. Smigrodzki
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/people/dop/dopDetail.cfm?drid=1151
- Davis Parker
http://www.biomind.com/
Biomarker Discovery, Personalized Medicine, Classification
Accuracy
-
Dr Jun Zhang
http://www.cs.engr.uky.edu/~jzhang/
DT-MRI based biomarkers for early detection of brain
(Alzheimer's) diseases
Bioinformatics: Brain Fiber Tracking In collaboration with Dr.
E. Carlson of the University of Alabama, and funded by DOE, we
have started a research work to develop high performance solvers
for anisotropic problems with applications to nerve fiber
tracking in human brains. The idea is to make use of the
Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DT-MRI) technology
to in vivo track the nerve fiber bundles in human brains. This
study is very important in medical applications when a brain
surgeon has to determine how to remove a cancer from a patient's
brain and not to damage any important nerve fiber. It is also
important to study the nerve system connectivity between
different parts of the brain to determine if any brain disease
is related to the disconnection of certain nerve fibers. For
example, we are preparing a proposal for using the DT-MRI
technology to study the Alzheimer's disease at the University of
Kentucky, in collaboration with the UK Alzheimer's Disease
Research Center. Due to the obvious nature of the studying
subjects (human beings), such studies have to be conducted in
vivo, i.e., without harming the subjects. The computer based DT-MRI
technology provides the most promising direction in this area.
For applications, we are using our fiber tracking algorithms to
reconstruct certain white matter fiber tracts to detect the
minor changes between Alzheimer's disease patients and healthy
control subjects. Our hope is to find some quantitative measure
of certain white matter fiber tracts that are affected by
Alzheimer's disease in its very early stage, before the typical
symptoms of patients become apparent and can be detected by
conventional means. The early detection or prediction of
Alzheimer's disease can be very important, as the patients can
be put on certain therapies to delay the onset of Alzheimer's
disease.
-
Clive Ballard (Professor)
Interesting conferences
on the topic
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